The Office of Rail and Road and published new guidance for heritage railways to help them apply the requirements of Railways and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006.
All railways need to comply with ROGS, but heritage railways can be excluded from what is required on the mainline.
However, even heritage railways need to have a Safety Management System in place and the new guidance aims to provide a summary of the ROGS requirements for the Safety Management System.
The ORR has encouraged all operators to consider the guidance and take appropriate action and has asked for feedback on the guidance for future revisions.
You can read the full document by clicking here.
Yes, I’m afraid that once you start the “safety is our number one priority” mindset, the logical outcome is to not run any trains at all, because any such running can be shown to be unsafe.
Safety is of course important, but it has to be balanced against actually being able to do whatever it is you want to do. There is always an element of risk in everything humans do (even getting out of bed in the morning) and we need to stop kidding ourselves that all such risks can be eliminated. They can’t if we actually want to achieve anything.
Correct Mashworth67: Just look at the Jacobite. Slam doors have been fine for 150 years.Now they are too dangerous for today’s snowflake generation.
Well the ORR appears to have started with the thin edge of the wedge, things will get stricter on the Heritage Lines up and down the country and the current rules that are in place now basically to Tram Way specification will change and soon the only thing that anyone will be able to operate within the rules will be the Pacer trains.